The defending Stanley Cup Champion Pittsburgh
Penguins made their only visit to HP Pavilion on Saturday night, and are
probably thankful they won't be seeing the Sharks on Mellon Arena ice in the
regular season. San Jose put everything together in a 5-0 dismantling before a
sellout crowd. Five different Sharks scored, including Joe Pavelski, who made
his return to the lineup after a 15 game absence. Evgeni Nabokov turned aside
all 27 shots he faced to earn his 49th career shutout.

Everything
seemed to fall in favor of the Sharks, who welcomed back Pavelski, a regular on
the second line. When they threw pucks on net, they went in. When they defended
the high powered Penguins offense, they got the blocks and saves necessary to
prevent the Penguins from recording a point in back-to-back games for the first
time this season.

"There's a smile on everyone's face when he is back
in the lineup," Sharks head coach Todd McLellan said of Pavelski after the
game. "He means so much to our team, a very intelligent player. He brings a
calmness to the ice."

Burdened with injury problems of their own, the
Penguins played without forward Evgeni Malkin and defenseman Sergei Gonchar,
who are both on the mend with ailments.

Pavelski scored the Sharks
second goal of the evening, on a power play at 16:04 of the opening period. Dan
Boyle setup the goal by sending a diagonal pass into the slot, where Pavelski
was parked for the deflection past Marc-Andre Fleury.

"It's a good
victory," Pavelski said. "They're a good team and they've been good on the road
as well. We got off to a good start. We were able to keep building on it and
score goals. We have to come again the next day against Nashville. They're
going to come in hungry and they're going to play us hard." Pittsburgh was on
the penalty kill after Matt Cooke tried laying out Douglas Murray with a check
well after a whistle. Cooke first found himself flat on his back after bouncing
off of Murray, then parked in the penalty box with a roughing minor.

Michael Rupp went after Murray again, but found himself squaring off with Brad
Staubitz, after the Sharks defenseman came to his teammate's aid.

Jamie McGinn put the Sharks up 1-0 earlier in the period on his second goal of
the season. After working the puck around the end boards, McGinn pushed it
toward the right corner where Jed Ortmeyer beat a defender to the pass.
Ortmeyer returned the feed to McGinn, who threw the puck on net from a severe
angle. The shot hit Fleury in the skate and deflected into the net.

"I
think we got behind the eight ball at one- nothing," said Penguins head coach
Dan Bylsma. "They got a power play goal with five minutes left in the first.
The game got out of hand with the score and maybe we kind of lapsed in our
game. When it got to be two-nothing they came hard and put the pucks behind our
defense. We just weren't ready to play the type of game that they came ready to
play."

Joe Thornton just missed making it 3-0 on a one time
chance right in front of the net but Fleury made a spectacular save right
before the end of the period.

Boyle would score the Sharks third goal
at 1:41 of the 2nd period after he walked into the Pittsburgh zone and snapped
a shot past Fleury. The defenseman first beat Ruslan Fedotenko through the
neutral zone, then deeked Martin Skoula with a nasty move that undressed the
defenseman before unloading the shot from the right dot.

That would
end Fleury's night, as Bylsma pulled the netminder for backup Brent Johnson.

Dany Heatley pushed the Sharks lead to 4-0 less than two minutes later
by tapping in a shot from Pavelski in the slot during a 4-on-4. Boyle started
the sequence by carrying the puck in the Pittsburgh zone and straddling the
blueline before dishing the puck to Thornton in the left corner. Pavelski
sliced down the middle of the slot, before taking a Thornton pass and jamming
it toward the net. The shot trickled under Johnson's left pad and appeared
headed for the goal anyway, but Heatley gave it an additional push from just
outside the right post.

"The Coaching staff harps on faceoffs and
coming out of our end," said Heatley. "We have enough guys that when we have
the puck, we're going to do some good things. We've been doing that lately,
getting out of our own end clean and winning some draws."

Nabokov
earned his pay on a play in tight after Murray was sent off for holding at
13:48. Chris Kunitz took a feed just outside the right post and tried
one-timing the puck past Nabokov, but the Sharks netminder smothered the shot.

Jay McKee put the Sharks on a 4 minute power play 8 minutes into the
3rd period, after he threw Pavelski into the boards then went after Jody
Shelley. The defenseman would earn a trip to the showers for instigating.

Manny Malhotra would make the Penguins pay by ripping a shot from the
high slot past Johnson for the 5-0 lead at 9:51. The goal was significant,
because San Jose's power play hasn't been burning up the league as of late, so
getting a pair of tallies on the man-advantage was a welcome change.

Shelley would get a chance to exact some revenge by scoring a win in a bout
with Eric Godard with 4 minutes to play. The fight was peculiar, given the
league's rules regarding instigating within the last 5 minutes of play. Shelley
made quick work of Godard with a couple of heavy rights.

For Nabokov,
he went about his business, stopping everything the Penguins tried throwing at
him.

"It was a very good night for us," said McLellan. "We executed
how we wanted to and had the start we needed to have coming back from the road
trip."

Game Notes:

Pittsburgh is now winless in their
last nine (8-0-1) visits to HP Pavilion. Pittsburghs last win in San Jose
was in October of 1997, when Tom Barasso outdueled Kelly Hrudy.

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